AMIN'S RISE AND FALL

By Vincent Canby

Published: March 19, 1982

''AMIN - THE RISE AND FALL,'' produced and directed by Sharad Patel, a Uganda-born film maker, is a suitably bloody exploitation film about the short, vicious reign of Gen. Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda from 1971, when he came to power in a military coup, until his overthrow by the Tanzanian army in 1979.

The film, which opens today at the Cinerama and other theaters, is not to be confused with Barbet Schroeder's brilliant documentary ''General Idi Amin Dada,'' which Mr. Schroeder filmed in Uganda with Mr. Amin's cooperation early in 1974. Though the new movie has the benefit of hindsight, it makes no attempt to dramatize the contradictions within Mr. Amin, nor does it ever suggest that his arrogance, dreams of glory, barbarity and fatal ignorance were, in fact, another legacy of European colonialism. These are all things that Mr. Schroeder managed to incorporate into his ''authorized'' biography of the dictator, made five years before his fall.

''Amin - the Rise and Fall'' is so obsessed with recreating the dictator's excesses - his womanizing, the murders he himself committed, his bigotry and his sadism - that it comes close to being an unconscious celebration of the man it calls a monster.

The film was produced in Kenya with a cast of professionals and amateurs, including Joseph Olita, who looks very much like Mr. Amin, in the title role; Geoffrey Keen as the British High Commissioner, and Leonard Trolley as Bob Astles, Mr. Amin's single white adviser. Denis Hills, the English journalist who was saved from execution when James Calla@ghan, then British Foreign Secretary, flew to Uganda on his behalf, plays himself in several brief scenes. Wade Huie wrote the original screenplay.

The successful Israeli commando raid on Entebbe, which so humiliated Mr. Amin in his final months, is treated very briskly, perhaps because it has already been the subject of at least two films. Vincent Canby

Vicious Reign

AMIN - THE RISE AND FALL, directed and produced by Sharad Patel; director of photography, Harvey Harrison; editor, Keith Palmer; released by Twin Continental Films; distributed by International Film Marketing. At the Cin- erama Theater, Broadway at West 47th Street; Gramercy, East 23d Street near Lexington Avenue; Lyric, West 42d Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue; Coliseum, West 181st and Broadway, and other theaters. Running time: 101 minutes. This film is rated R.